THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
at his oar, coatless, wet through, hungry
and tired, yet not noticing any of those
things and intent only on the saving of this
second life. We did not want to lose one
more. One was enough to give to Cape
Horn-more than enough.
The mate, at the steering oar in the
stern sheets, swept the sea with his sharp
eyes, this way and that. There was a
chance we would not find the ship again, if
the squall came down heavily and shut her
out. That had happened with the Swedish
bark Staut, in much the same circum
stances. She put out a boat to save a man
fallen into the sea from the main yard, and
a squall came down and she lost every
body-man overboard, those who went to
rescue him, boat, and everything. We re
membered that. There was nothing in the
boat to sustain life. We had thrown the
water cask and the bread barrels out to
lighten her.
Then, in the last moment of light, we
saw him. It was a sea miracle, if ever
there was one. He was on the crest of a
sea, only three seas away from us! We
had been on the point of giving up. We
lay to heartily and soon had the boy back
aboard. We pulled him in over the stern
and went back to the ship, which had been
watching us and now ran slowly down
wind toward us. The boy was uncon
scious and nearly frozen to death, but he
lived. He was among the lucky ones.
ROUND CAPE HORN-AT LAST!
A few days afterward we were around
the Horn, and immediately the tempera
ture rose about 20 degrees and our spirits
with it. In reality we ran into a nasty
snowstorm off the Falkland Islands, which
was every bit as bad as anything the Pa
cific side of the Horn had given us, but
we were in the Atlantic now and did not
mind.
Blow on, old gale! We did not mind.
We knew that we should quickly come to
warmer latitudes and southeast trades, and
so to the Line, the northeast trades, the
Azores, and home. But we did not count
upon too much just now.
We took advantage of the Cape Horn
currents to pass between the Falklands and
the mainland of South America, which is
an unusual way for sailing ships. Once
past the Horn, we made good progress.
It seemed that the Pacific had wreaked the
ocean's wrath on us and delivered us to the
Atlantic with the gruff greeting: "Here,
these dogs have had enough. Treat them
well."
THE SECOND MATE GOES MAD
We were glad, and, as the days and the
weeks slipped by, came a little to forget
what had happened earlier in the voyage.
But the sea was not done with us yet.
The second mate went mad with awful
suddenness. We had no warning of it.
We did not expect anything like that. We
knew that he had worried much over
Walker's death, since he was officer of the
watch. But it was not his fault. It was
not anyone's fault. It was just one of
those terrible, inexplicable things that are
always happening, yet never seem to re
move from this earth persons that might
well be done without.
In the forecastle we worried much, too,
but we had each other for company. There
is no one more lonely than the sailing
ship's officers. We carried only two
first mate and second. They rarely were
company for each other, for when one had
the deck the other slept.
The captain, as is the sailor's style, kept
himself to himself and spoke to the sail
maker for company. The mates led lonely
lives, finding what companionship they
could in their own minds. The result was
that when something came to unhinge the
mind of our second mate, there was none
to see how perilously near he was to break
ing down. Nobody noticed until it was
too late.
We had an awful time with him. About
that I would rather have little to say. It
was not his fault, poor devil. We were all
very sorry for him. We had to keep con
stant watch on him for the rest of the
voyage lest he do himself harm. He tried
to kill himself three times. It was very
worrying. We tried to make for Cape
Town to put him aboard some steamer we
should see there in the shipping lanes, but
the wind changed and we could not make
Cape Town. We saw no other ships. We
were o04 days at sea before we saw the
sign of a steamer, and then it was only a
smudge of smoke on the horizon. The
sailing ship goes her own way about the
world, far from the shipping lanes and
away from the busy routes of the steamers.
She may see other sailing ships, but rarely,
until she reaches the shipping lanes of the
North Atlantic, anything of steamers.
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